More Alike Than Either of Us Realize
by BelieveInNargles13
Summary: One-shot set after the season 3 finale when Snow realized that Princess Leia was there to witness her 'death', now knowing who the princess really is. Pure mother/daughter fluff with a side of daddy/daughter. *Title will probably change at some point.


Snow curled up against Charming's side feeling the happiest she had in ages. She had a beautiful, healthy, baby boy, her Prince Charming by her side, and Emma and Henry were staying in Storybrooke. The latter two were going to look at the apartments Henry had found earlier in the morning. As much as she'd miss having her eldest child and grandson under the same roof, their flat was getting quite crowded with the addition of the baby.

Snow sat with Henry's book on her lap. She had been reading it to Neal, wanting him to know about the Enchanted Forest and where his roots were. But he had finally fallen asleep and now Snow was flipping through the pages, reminiscing on all the events in her life that were recorded, both the good and the bad. Her smile grew as she came to the story where she and Charming met, now knowing that Princess Leia was more significant then she had originally seemed.

But as she turned the page her smile dropped. Charming felt the change in her mood.

"What's wrong, Snow?" he asked.

Snow shook her head. "Emma is Princess Leia," was all she said before placing the book to the side and standing up to go find her daughter.

Still confused, Charming looked at the page she had been on. There was an picture of Regina hurling a fireball at a captive Snow when no one knew about her plan to turn herself into a bug. Everyone watching thought she was dead. Even the Princess Leia.

* * *

Snow walked into the other room to find Emma sitting with her legs up on the couch, eating a rather large bowl of ice cream. She sat down next to Emma.

"What?" Emma asked after the two had sat in silence for a brief moment. "Are you going to give me the 'it's too late for sugar' speech again? Because I've had a long day and think I deserve some dessert right now."

Snow just smiled at her, choked back some tears threatening to fall, and wrapped her in a hug.

Emma tensed up in surprise from the sudden contact, then relaxed and wrapped one arm around her mother. The other arm was extended trying to keep the bowl of ice cream from spilling. "Okay... What exactly is this about? You're acting weirder than usual."

"I'm sorry, Emma. I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"For you having to watch me die."

"Oh," Emma said pulling away from her mother. "That. It's okay. It all turned out fine."

"No. It's not okay. I was just looking at that story now, thinking back to how weird I thought it was when Princess Leia was so relieved that I was alive when I barely knew her. But now it all makes sense. I'm sorry that I dismissed you so quickly then."

Emma's gaze shifted back to her ice cream. She picked up the spoon again and allowed her hair to fall over her face so Snow couldn't see it. "There's no way you could have known who I was. Even if I had told you, you probably just would have thought I was crazy or something."

Snow pushed Emma's hair behind her ear so she could see her daughter's face. Emma's eyes were closed as she tried, and failed, to keep herself from crying. "Emma, look at me." She was silent for a moment until her daughter's eyes locked with hers. Snow's own eyes filled with water as she saw a few escaped tears streaking down Emma's cheeks.

As Snow wiped the tears away, Emma's instincts told her to pull away. This was the second time today someone had comforted her with such a touch, and feeling so vulnerable still made her uncomfortable. But she ignored those instincts. She wasn't going to let her walls snap back up. Not after she was finally able to let people in. She finally felt like she belonged somewhere.

Not only did she ignore her instincts to pull away, but she actively fought against them. She leaned further into her mother's hand and placed her own over it as it rested on her cheek. She didn't even try to hold back the next few tears that fell.

Snow spoke again. "Not knowing who you actually were to me is no excuse and certainly doesn't make it any easier for you. I saw my own mother as she was sick and dying, but at least I knew it was coming. She knew I was her daughter and we got to say goodbye to each other. I had accepted that it was happening. I can't imagine how you felt watching me burn at the stake when there was nothing you could do about it."

Emma gave a small laugh as she brushed the remaining tears off her face. "Probably something like sending your newborn daughter to another realm through a magical wardrobe without truly knowing if she'd be okay or if you'd ever see her again, and that if you did it wouldn't be for another 28 years. Or maybe like your newborn son being taken by a wicked witch, again, just moments after birth and having no idea what she was going to do with him."

Snow gave Emma a sad smile. "Okay. Maybe I can imagine. But those were by far the two worst moments of my entire life and I wouldn't wish pain like that on anybody. Especially my own daughter. I knew going in that my plan to use the dust on Regina was likely to fail. And I knew that my back up plan was to use the dust on myself as she tried to execute me. I should have told someone that was my plan so you all wouldn't worry. But by that point I'd been on my own, running from Regina and living as a bandit, for so long that I wasn't sure if I could trust anyone."

"Trust me," Emma stated. "I understand what that's like."

Snow squeezed her daughter's shoulder. "I think you and I are a lot more alike than either of us realize."

"I'm starting to get that," Emma nodded in agreement. She paused for a moment and looked down again before speaking. "It sucked," she began before clarifying. "Watching you die. It really, really sucked. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how I was going to return to a Storybrooke that you weren't alive in. Hell, I didn't even know how I even existed at that moment. But it's what made me realize how much I would miss you if I left and took Henry back to New York. It's how I realized that this is my home and I can't just leave it."

Snow placed a comforting hand on Emma's knee. She hated that she had caused her daughter so much pain. But she was also thankful that something had finally convinced Emma that this is where she belonged.

"And I'm sorry too," Emma looked up at Snow, her eyes beginning to glisten with tears again. When Snow gave her a quizzical look she continued her apology. "For being so cold and closed off when you were just trying to treat me like a daughter. When you didn't recognize me in the forest it hurt, but all I could think of was how I had been doing the exact same thing to you ever since you realized that I was your daughter."

"Oh, Emma. That was nothing like this. I understood what you were doing. I knew you wanted to let us in, you just didn't know how." Emma put her bowl down and pulled her mother into a proper hug. "Deep down you always cared about me and your father. Even if you didn't know how to express it or let us in. We knew it was there. That's nothing like being completely ignored by your own mother."

Emma buried her face into her mothers shoulder and let a few sobs wrack through her body. After a minute or so she lifted her head up. "I love you, Mom," she whispered.

Snow's heart leapt. She felt a bit guilty because even though the topics they had covered in this conversation were dark and heavy on both sides, she felt as though it was all worth it to have this moment with her daughter. "I love you too, Emma."

Eventually the two pulled away from each other, both wiping tears from their eyes.

"I've cried far too much for one day," Emma admitted. "Let's talk about something happier."

Snow smiled a mischievous grin, knowing just what topic to bring up.

The smirk didn't get by Emma unnoticed. "I don't think I like that smile. On second thought I'm really tired and maybe I should just go to bed."

She went to stand up but Snow grabbed her hand and pulled her back down. "C'mon, Emma! I just want to know about you and Hook."

Emma's face began turning red. "What about me and Hook? There's nothing to tell!" her tone a bit too defensive.

"One: How hard you're blushing right now suggests otherwise. Two: I've seen the pictures of you two dancing together in Henry's book. That look in both your eyes was not 'nothing'! And three: Everyone saw you two kissing outside Granny's and that most certainly was not 'nothing'."

Emma rolled her eyes but was unable to suppress her smile.

"Please, Emma! I missed out on all your teenage crushes! All your first dates and first loves and first heartbreaks. Let me be a mother for a little while." Snow knew it was a low blow, pulling the 'let me be your mom' card after their conversation, but she also knew Emma wanted to talk. She just needed a little push to get started.

Emma sighed. "Okay. Maybe's there's _something. _But I'm not sure what yet." Snow smiled. "It's just... he gave up his ship for me. He traded the Jolly Roger for a magic bean so he could come back to this world and find me. That has to mean something, right?"

"Of course it does. You two are good for each other. You can see it in his eyes. He would do anything for you. Just don't tell you father you're in love with a pirate."

"I never said anything about 'love'," Emma added quickly, again maybe just a little too defensively.

Snow just smiled. "No. You didn't. I hate to brag but I'm kind of an expert when it comes to true love. And I've seen the way you too look at each other. It's the same look your father and I share. You may not be ready to use the L-word yet, but that doesn't mean it's not there."

Emma thought about whether or not she was in love with Hook. It seemed like a lot of pressure, to have a 'True Love'. But the thought made Emma's grin grow.

"See?" Snow accused. "You can't even stop smiling because you're thinking about what I said and you know it's true!"

Emma glared at her mother. "Shut up!" she said, but the smile on her face made the command a lot less threatening than it should have been.

"He really traded the Jolly Roger so he could come back here and find you?"

Emma bit her lip, raised her eyebrows, and nodded. The two both knew how much that ship meant to Hook. It was his entire life. And it gave them both a clue as to just how much Emma meant to him.

Then the two broke out in laughter. They felt like they were Mary Margaret and Emma again. Roommates and best friends. But it went beyond that now. They were closer and had a bond that could never be broken. And both of them felt it.

"What are you two laughing about?" Charming came out cradling baby Neal in his arms.

"Oh, nothing," Snow responded. "Just some overdue mother/daughter bonding. Did we wake him?"

"No. I'm pretty sure I did that when I picked him up. He just looked so peaceful and I couldn't resist picking him up. I want to savor every moment that I can."

Snow smiled at him, understandingly. Emma felt a pang in her chest as she realized just how much she missed not being able to have these two raise her. They would have been, and will be, amazing parents. She could picture just how different her life would have been. She would have been pampered and spoiled but still down to Earth and raised to care about everything and everyone. She would have been completely irritated with her parents' overprotectiveness during her teenage years. In summary she would have become a different person. She doesn't blame them anymore. She knows why they did it. It was the same reason she had given up Henry and she would never want him to hate her for it. But a piece of her still longed for what she could have had; what Neal will have.

She pushed the longing to the back of her mind the same way she always did: by thinking about how if things had gone differently, she wouldn't have Henry. And now with the thought that she also would most likely never have found Hook. Maybe Emma's life was rough getting here, but she can try anything and everything to make it all seem worth it.

Emma stood up and rinsed her ice cream bowl out before putting it in the dishwasher and walking over to David. "Well, I'm going to try to get some sleep before the little prince over here decides to throw one of his tantrums." She let Neal grab her finger. "You must get a real kick out of waking your big sister up in the middle of the night. It's a good thing you're cute because I do not like when people interrupt my sleep."

"She's not lying, Neal," Snow offered from her position still on the couch across the room, remembering their roommate days when she had accidentally awoken Emma and had to deal with an angry blonde the rest of the day.

Emma shot her a look over her shoulder before leaning down to kiss Neal on the forehead. "Good night, Neal."

Snow walked over to her family just as Emma was straightening up again. As Emma turned to her, she gave her another hug. "Good night, Emma. We'll see you in the morning."

"Or more likely in the next couple of hours when the crying starts. Good night, Mom." Emma turned towards her room, but before heading up the stairs she stopped next to David. She placed her hand on his shoulder and raised up on her toes a bit to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Good night, Dad."

If he hadn't had Neal in his arms still, he would have cradled one of his hands on the back of her head and placed his own kiss on his daughter's forehead. But instead he had to settle for a "Sleep tight, Emma."

After she had gone, Snow took Neal and they both went back to their bed.

"Twice in one day," Charming stated referring to the number of times she had called him 'Dad' recently. "That's a record high for a time when our lives are not in immediate peril. What was that about?"

Snow placed the once again sleeping Neal in his cradle and went back to her husband. "I think she's realizing that this is where she belongs. That it's okay for her to be happy and happiness isn't just a set up for disappointment."

"Do you ever feel guilty? About Neal? About having another child that Emma will watch us raise and realize everything we never got a chance to give her?"

"Sometimes. She gets this look in her eyes at times when she looks at us with him. Almost like jealousy. But I know she loves her baby brother and she loves us. And she understands why we did what we did. Plus, one day she's going to want another child of her own and she'll be in the same boat with Henry. She'd never want him to blame her for wanting to be happy."

"Yeah, well, as long as she's not having this hypothetical future child with the pirate..." he trailed off as Snow gave him a knowing smile. "Yeah, yeah. I know. It's going to be with Hook. I've seen the way they look at each other too."

"Hook's a good guy. And he love's Emma and would do anything for her. What more could we really ask for?"

"A prince?" Charming suggested only to receive a light slap to the chest from Snow.

"Let's not forget that when you and I first met, I was a thief and you were about to marry a princess. The heart wants what the heart wants."

"That it does." Charming gave his wife a kiss as they made their way under the covers and snuggled into each other. "But as her father it is my duty to dislike any of Emma's boyfriends and be highly suspicious of his intentions with my daughter."

Snow just shook her head. "Go to sleep, Charming. Your son will be awake soon and I, for one, am exhausted."


End file.
